Gujarati grammar


The []grammar of the Gujarati language is the study of the word order, case marking, verb conjugation, and other morphological and syntactic structures of the Gujarati language, an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat and spoken by the Gujarati people. This page overviews the grammar of standard Gujarati, and is written in a romanization. Hovering the mouse cursor over forms will reveal the appropriate English translation.

Morphology

Nouns

Gujarati has three genders, two numbers, and three cases. Nouns may be divided into declensional subtypes: marked nouns displaying characteristic, declensional vowel terminations, and unmarked nouns which do not. These are the paradigms for the termination —
Two things must be noted about the locative case and its limited nature. First, it only exists as a case for masculines and neuters, which is why the corresponding feminine cell has been left blanked out. Rather, for marked feminine and unmarked nouns the locative is a postposition, which are explained on later in the article. Second, there is no distinction of gender.
Furthermore, there also exists in Gujarati a plural marker -ઓ. Unlike the English plural it is not mandatory, and may be left unexpressed if plurality is already expressed in some other way: by explicit numbering, agreement, or the above declensional system. And yet despite the declensional system, ઓ often gets tacked onto nominative marked masculine and neuter plurals anyway. This redundancy is called the double plural. Historically, the origin of this suffix is murky, but it is certainly morphological rather than lexical. It is new and it is not attested in Old Gujarati, Middle Gujarati, and Old Western Rajasthani literature. It may simply be the case that it spread from an unrepresented dialect.
Thus combining both the declensional and plural suffixes, the following table outlines all possible Gujarati noun terminations —
The next table, of noun declensions, shows the above suffix paradigms in action. Words: છોકરો "", ડાઘો "", મહિનો "", કચરો "", છોકરું "", કારખાનું "", બારણું "", અંધારું "", છોકરી "", ટોપી "", બાટલી "", વીજળી "", વિચાર "", રાજા "", ધોબી "", બરફ "", ઘર "", બહેન "", મેદાન "", પાણી "", બાબત "", નિશાળ "", ભાષા "", ભક્તિ "".
s may be divided into declinable and indeclinable categories. Declinables are marked, taking the appropriate declensional termination for the noun they qualify. One difference from nouns however is that adjectives do not take the plural marker -o. Neut. nom. sg. is the citation form. Indeclinable adjectives are completely invariable. All adjectives can be used either attributively, predicatively, or substantively.
s are made by using "than" or "instead of", and "more" or "less". The word for "more" is optional, while "less" is required, denoting that in the absence of either it's "more" than will be inferred.
In the absence of an object of comparison :
GujaratiLiteralMeaning
vadhu moṭo kūtroThe more big dogThe bigger dog
kūtro vadhu moṭo cheThe dog more big isThe dog is bigger

Superlatives are made through comparisons with "all".
GujaratiLiteralMeaning
sauthī sāf orṛoThe clean than all roomThe cleanest room
orṛo sauthī sāf cheThe room is clean than allThe room is the cleanest

Or by leading with mā̃ "in" postpositioned to the same adjective.
GujaratiLiteralMeaning
nīcāmā̃ nīcī chokrīThe short in the short girlThe shortest girl

Postpositions

The sparse Gujarati case system serves as a springboard for Gujarati's grammatically functional postpositions, which parallel English's prepositions. It is their use with a noun or verb that is what necessitates the noun or verb taking the oblique case. There are six, one-syllable primary postpositions. Orthographically, they are bound to the words they postposition.
Postpositions can postposition other postpositions. For example, થી suffixing the two specific locatives can help to specify what type of "from" is meant "from off of", માંથી.
Beyond this are a slew of compound postpositions, composed of the genitive primary postposition નું plus an adverb.
The genitive bit is often optionally omissible with nouns, though not with pronouns.

Pronouns

Personal

Gujarati has personal pronouns for the first and second persons, while its third person system uses demonstrative bases, categorized deictically as proximate and distal.
The language has a T–V distinction in તું and તમે . The latter "formal" form is also grammatically plural. A similar distinction also exists when referring to someone in the third person.
Rare among modern Indo-Aryan languages, Gujarati has inclusive and exclusive we, આપણે and અમે .

Overview

The Gujarati verbal system is largely structured around a combination of aspect and tense/mood. Like the nominal system, the Gujarati verb involves successive layers of elements after the lexical base.
Gujarati has 2 aspects: perfective and imperfective, each having overt morphological correlates. These are participle forms, inflecting for gender, number, and case by way of a vowel termination, like adjectives. The perfective forms from the verb stem, followed by -ય-, capped off by the agreement vowel and the imperfective forms with -ત-.
Derived from હોવું "to be" are five copula forms: present, subjunctive, past, contrafactual, and presumptive. Used both in basic predicative/existential sentences and as verbal auxiliaries to aspectual forms, these constitute the basis of tense and mood.
Non-aspectual forms include the infinitive, the imperative, and the agentive. Mentioned morphological conditions such the subjunctive, contrafactual, etc. are applicable to both copula roots for auxiliary usage with aspectual forms and to non-copula roots directly for often unspecified finite forms.
Finite verbal agreement is with the nominative subject, except in the transitive perfective, where it is with the direct object, with the erstwhile subject taking the ergative construction -એ. The perfective aspect thus displays split ergativity. The infinitive's agreement is also with its direct object, if paired with one.
Tabled just below on the left are the paradigms for the major gender and number agreement termination, nominative case. Oblique paradigms differ from those introduced in #Nouns, being either thoroughly -આ or આં. Locative -એ is found in attributive adjectival function only in fixed expressions. To the right are the paradigms for the person and number agreement termination, used by the subjunctive and future. Yellow fields: -એ following C, ઉ , ઊ ; -ઈ following ઓ , ઓ ; -ય following આ .

Forms

The example verb is intransitive hālvũ "to shake", with various sample inflections. Much of the below chart information derives from.
Notes
Gujarati causatives are morphologically contrastive. Verbs can be causativized up to two times, to a double causative.
Single
Causatives are made by two main schemes involving alteration of the root.
or
If the causativization is of a transitive, then the secondary agent, whom the subject "causes to" or "gets to" do whatever, is marked by the postposition nī pāse.
Double
Furthermore, that causative can be causativized again, for a double causative, with a possible tertiary agent.
The passive has both periphrastic and morphological means of expression. The former has -mā̃ āvvũ postpositioned to infinitive; the latter has ā added to root, with certain phonological processes as work as well: if the root vowel is ā then it becomes a and if the root ends in a vowel then h or v is suffixed. Thus lakhvũ "to write" → lakhvāmā āvvũ, lakhāvũ "to be written". The post-position thī marks the agent, As in other New Indo-Aryan languages, formation of passives is not restricted to transitive verbs and has a restricted domain of usage except in special registers. Both intransitive and transitive may be grammatically passivized to show capacity, in place of compounding with the modal śakvũ "to be able". Lastly, intransitives often have a passive sense, or convey unintentional action.

Sample text

Original

પ્રતિષ્ઠા અને અધિકારોની દૃષ્ટિએ સર્વ માનવો જન્મથી સ્વતંત્ર અને સમાન હોય છે. તેમનામાં વિચારશક્તિ અને અંતઃકરણ હોય છે અને તેમણે પરસ્પર બંધુત્વની ભાવનાથી વર્તવું જોઈએ.

Transliteration

Pratiṣṭhā anē adikhārōnī dr̥ṣṭinē sarva mānavō janmathī svatantra anē samān hōy chē. Tēmnāmā̃ vicārśakti anē antaḥkaraṇ hōy chē anē tēmṇē paraspar bandhutvanī bhāvnāthī vartvũ jōiē.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Other Sample Texts